Or, rather, my motivation is bouncing off the walls like a kindergartener.I’m having a hard time thinking about – or even caring about – many of the goals that I’ve talked about on this blog. Instead, I’m bouncing from one new ambition to the next, endlessly excited, and accomplishing a lot, but abandoning my original goals in the process.I’m not sure whether to be proud of all that I am getting done, or ashamed of my poor attention span.

So I think I’ll just be both.

ANYWAY, what have I been up to, you ask? Oh, well, let me tell you!

First of all, I’ll tell you some good decisions that I made today. I FINALLY re-typed our emergency contact sheet with our new info (this sheet is to leave out for babysitters, etc., and to have our info easily on hand in one place in case of an emergency). To give you an idea of how long it has been, Felicity was not on this contact sheet. Yeah. Not helpful.

I spent a heckuvalotta time playing with Ariel this evening, even when so many other things (most of them on the computer) were calling for my attention. I’m rather proud of myself for that. It’s hard for me to pay attention to her for a long time – she goes a mile a minute, and she goes into fits so easily, that I tend to tune her out. Not good. Bad mommy.

Along those same lines, I went to the office to pick up a package today, and I TOOK ARIEL WITH ME. On foot. Like, 4 apartment buildings away. And we stopped and petted the kitty, which was probably the highlight of her day. I can be a pretty good mommy sometimes, when I decide to be.

I also listed something on eBay that I told Dan I would sell in, oh, November. ‘Bout time! Why do I hate listing things on eBay so much? It’s not like it’s hard…

Mostly I just hate going to the post office. Ariel is always on her worst behavior, and I’m convinced that the big postal worker with the dark facial hair is judging me.

So those were my good decisions, that I can think of. My bad ones were drinking coffee and Mountain Dew. Again, I’m sure there were more. But those were the ones where I most definitely knew better.

So, you asked what I’ve been up to. Well, RaeAnn and I have started a blog together, and, in the spirit of that blog and the conversations that inspired it, I have been working on some life changes and enterprises.

RaeAnn and I have pretty much decided to start a business together, so I’ve been researching what we’ll need for that. Stay tuned…

I’ve been de-plasticizing my home somewhat. The BPA-laden sippies were thrown away today. The plastic pitchers have been discarded in favor of glass. The Sigg that Ariel got for Christmas from Aunt Becky has gone into full-time use. And I’m saving my jars to use as food storage containers.

Moreover, I’ve been learning more about being frugal, with the intention of using the spare cash to raise the quality of our food. You can read about that in more detail over here.

I’ve gotten rid of quite a few of Ariel’s toys. Here is her stash before the culling.

Shameful, eh? And how many of them do you think she played with? How many do you think she just pulled out of wherever they were stored and dragged all over the house, before abandoning them? Good guess!

So far, I’m not doing a fantastic job of becoming an early riser, but I’ve made enough progress that my husband has noticed and complimented my self-discipline to a friend! Oh, boy, did that feel good!

Felicity is doing much better at sleeping in her own crib, and we actually GOT RID OF THE SWING (who could have fathomed that a few weeks ago?). She favors screaming over napping on occasion, and has a tendency to pull up the bumper pad and bury her face underneath it, further traumatizing herself, but, for the most part, things are going well.